He seemed surprised to see her.
“Why didn’t you come to me sooner, Sylvie?”
“I liked the freedom of being a courier, oncle,” she replied.
“Yes, I suppose you did, young lady. We always marveled at your independent streak. Especially when you married that communist.”
“Bernard is not a communist, oncle, as I’ve told you and everyone else for years. And what would you know of those times, anyway, while you hid in Africa and then in England…and we struggled alone against the Boche?”
“We all had our roles to play, ma petite nièce.”
“Yes, but some roles were more héroϊque than others, oncle.”
He didn’t want to argue with her.
He couldn’t argue with her.
Because she was right. The Resistance had carried the fight to the Germans within France while the Free French Army in exile had been powerless to do so.
“You still carry Bernard’s surname, though, Sylvie. I thought you were rid of him.”
“I am rid of him in every way but one...”
“The church?”
She nodded. The annulment of her marriage to Bernard Bergerac—Résistance commander, now a French soldier, and still a communist in everyone’s eyes but Sylvie’s—had yet to be granted.
“No matter,” Colonel Marchand said. “A post here, in Affaires Civiles, will suit your talents far better.”
“Fine. I am ready to start right now, oncle.”
“I’m sure you are, my dear…but we must let Colonel Duval finish his little game of drumming you out first. Once the dust settles on all that, I will simply rehire you. No one will be the wiser, and you’ll still be paid for your service. That’s one benefit La Résistance never provided. In the meantime, give yourself a brief vacation. Cool off. Go visit that American flyer of yours, perhaps.”
Startled and angry, she replied, “Damn it! How on earth do you know about my American flyer? Is nothing sacred—or secret—anymore? Son of a bitch!”
Marchand laughed, wrapping his niece in a gentle embrace. “You talk like an American now, too. Just relax, little girl. No one is spying on you. I visited your father last month on my way to Paris. He told me.”
She had little trouble finding Tommy Moon. The 301st Fighter Squadron was still at Toul, France, after all these months. It had only taken the better part of a day, several hitched rides on military convoys, and a borrowed bicycle to travel the one hundred thirty miles from French 1st Army HQ at Mulhouse, France.
She’d found him in the operations shack, checking the weather which had grounded the American pilots for days and wasn’t likely to improve for a few more. When she walked in, Tommy thought maybe he should pinch himself, because surely he must be dreaming.
But she was no apparition. He gathered her up in his arms instead.
To keep their conversation private in the roomful of Americans, they spoke in French. “I can’t believe you’re here, Syl. How long do you have?”
“I have a few days.”
“It looks like I’ve got a few more days off, too, thanks to this crappy weather. Give me a minute to get squared away. Did you have supper yet?”
“No, Tommy. I haven’t eaten all day. Traveling, you know?”
Thirty minutes later, they were tucked in a quiet corner of a Toul café. There was much to catch up on—they hadn’t seen each other in two long and lonely months. They spoke in English now to preserve whatever privacy it provided among the locals.
When she told him about the incident that got her fired, a familiar feeling of dread took hold of him.
“How’d you even find those Krauts?” he asked.
“I had dispatches for a French outpost. I never found it. But I found the Boche instead.”
“Oh, brother…you’re still doing that maquis stuff, aren’t you, Syl?”
“Tommy, for the hundredth time, there is no maquis anymore. I work for the French Army…or at least I did until yesterday. But I will be in its employ again very shortly.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better? You stumbled into some Kraut and talked him into surrendering his regiment? How the hell…what was he, an oberst or something?”
“Yes, he was an oberst…and I didn’t have to talk him into anything. He was very eager to surrender his command. But there have been incidents where the Boche tried to surrender and were slaughtered instead, as if their ‘surrender’ might be some sort of trick. I merely ensured there would be no slaughter.”
“How on God’s green Earth did you do that?”
“It was very easy. I pretended to be the hostage of a Boche party delivering an ultimatum. Once we all were safely inside a French outpost, I announced their true intention. I don’t know who was more relieved…the Boche or the startled French captain accepting the surrender.”
“Weren’t you afraid it could’ve all gone to hell in a handbasket and you’d…you’d… It only takes one frightened idiot to start shooting and—”
“No, the French officers all knew who I was. They’d never knowingly try to hurt me. And the Boche were unarmed. All part of the plan.”
“Geez, Syl, you still got a real nose for shit, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what that means, Tommy. But it certainly doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
“It just means you can’t seem to keep yourself out of trouble, that’s all.” He paused and then added, “And knowing that still drives me out of my mind with worry.”
She leaned across the table and grabbed his hand in hers. “But don’t you see there was really no danger at all? An entire German regiment surrendered without a shot being fired. Is it any less of a victory if no one is killed?”
“But your boss didn’t see it that way,” Tommy replied.
She made a face like she was smelling something rotten. “Because he’s a fool, Tommy, and didn’t like being upstaged by a woman. That man can kiss my ass.”
He still didn’t look convinced.
“Tommy, more and more Germans are surrendering each day. Why not make it easy for them?”
“Is that what you’re going to be doing now in Civil Affairs? Making it easy for Germans to surrender?”
“No, I don’t believe so. We’ll be providing for the civilians in the conquered areas of Germany. Just like it is in liberated France, the people will need food and medical care, the displaced will need shelter...in short, they’ll need everything. War takes away. It never gives. We’ll have our hands full, too, because Boche civilians are flooding west to get away from the Russians. Do you remember what I said about them? They make the Wehrmacht—even the SS—look almost civilized.”
They were out of bed at 0430.
“I’ve got to get back,” Tommy said, slipping into his uniform. “Not like we’ll be flying or anything, though.”
“Yes, the weather. It’s been so miserable.”
“That bakery up the street, Syl…will they still have fresh bread and that awful fake coffee? I could sure use some.”
“So could I.”
The ersatz coffee was as awful as Tommy remembered. But at least it was hot. The bread fresh from the oven, on the other hand, was to die for.
“Something’s still on your mind,” Sylvie said. “I know you slept poorly. And here I thought I’d worn you out.”
He chose his words carefully, delivering them between mouthfuls of bread.
“I don’t know, Syl…I’m just having a hard time...a real hard time…getting excited about all this surrendering that’s supposed to be going on.”
“It’s not supposed to be, Tommy. It is.”
“I hear what you’re saying…and I hear that same thing from lots of GIs, too. But we keep getting surprised by the Krauts. They’re coming up with some weapons we’re having a rough time dealing with.”
He told her of the jet aircraft they’d encountered.
“In the air, they completely outclass us,” he added. “They can do whatever they want and the
re’s nothing we can do to stop them…except if and when we can catch them at that tiny window while they’re landing. Just one quick shot, and that’s all you get.”
“So you’re worried about losing your…what’s the term you use for dominance in the sky?”
“Air superiority?”
“Yes, that’s the term I was trying to think of.”
“Well, yeah…that’s exactly what we’re worried about, Syl. If we lose air superiority, it changes the whole ball game. But those airplanes are just part of the problem. We’re hearing reports of super tanks, super artillery, and lord knows what else.”
“Reports, Tommy? Or just silly rumors?”
“No, Syl. Actual intel reports.”
“Tommy, have you actually seen any of these super weapons, aside from those jet aircraft?”
“No.”
“And how many of those aircraft have you seen?”
“Two. But there have been confirmed reports of more.”
“How many more?”
“I don’t know…a dozen? Two dozen?”
She offered her best soothing smile. “Two dozen…maybe…against your million men, your thousands of aircraft, tens of thousands of cannon. That doesn’t seem to change the equation very much, Tommy. If at all.”
“I sure hope you’re right,” he replied. “But I can’t shake the feeling that the deeper we try to go into Germany, the more this fight’s going to get real different. And it isn’t going to be for the better.”
She relaxed against the chair back, gently shaking her head in disagreement. “I see it very differently, Tommy. Sometimes I wonder about you pilots. You spend so much time in the sky looking down at things that I’m not sure you see them in the proper frame of reference. But as one who lives with two feet firmly on the ground, one who knew and fought the Boche when their power was unchecked, I see them now as an army—and a nation—in collapse. They’re on their last legs, without a doubt. We’ll see more and more units surrendering en masse until there are no more Boche willing or able to fight. And I think that will happen very soon.”
“And until that happens, your uncle’s going to keep you out of trouble, right?”
“Quite frankly, Tommy, I have no idea what my oncle has in store for me.”
Seeing his face drop, she added, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Seriously, Tommy—how dangerous can Affaires Civiles possibly be?”
Chapter Six
The men of 4th Armored Division were making good progress, encountering no opposition in the first miles of their drive eastward to the city of Worms—and the Rhine. They’d stayed on the main highway out of necessity; there weren’t that many roadways that traversed the Hunsrück Mountains, and the few existing secondary roads were narrow and dangerously confining for a fast-moving armored unit.
But their progress was about to be interrupted. As Baker Company of 37th Tank—the lead unit—approached the crest of a hill, a command over the radio brought the long, snake-like column of armored vehicles to a halt.
“Pick up your defensive sectors,” Captain Newcomb told his platoon leaders. “Looks like we’re going to be stopped here for a little bit.”
As he walked up the roadway to the top of the rise, he saw Sean Moon was already there, lying flat at the crest, surveilling the downslope terrain through binoculars.
“Well, there it is, Captain, just like Colonel Abrams promised,” Sean said, pointing into the distance. “Welcome to the dragon’s teeth. I guess we’ve finally reached the fucking West Wall.”
At the base of the valley ahead, thousands of identically formed tank obstacles—dragon’s teeth, each a flat-topped concrete pyramid several feet high—stretched five deep in rows staggered to prevent any vehicle from passing through. The rows ran north and south as far as the eye could see. There was a narrow break in the teeth where the highway passed through the band of obstacles. A moveable, gate-like barrier covered in barbed wire filled that gap.
“The only thing that gate’s good for is stopping some cows,” Newcomb said, “and that’s only if it’s mined. What do you figure they’ve got covering it, Sergeant?”
Sean pointed to a small cut in the ridgeline beyond the obstacles, using his outstretched fingers as a gauge. “Look three fingers to the left of the road near the top of that next ridge, sir. I’m betting there’s a bunker with an anti-tank gun or two right there.” Then he moved his outstretched finger to another point, this one on the opposite side of the highway. “Okay, now go four fingers to the right. I’m thinking there might be another bunker right about there. See those funny breaks in the tree line? Looks like somebody did a little trimming to get himself better fields of fire.”
Sean’s driver Kowalski joined them. “The colonel wants you on the radio, sir,” he said to Newcomb.
As the captain raced back to his tank to take the call, Kowalski asked Sean, “Can I take a look, Sarge?”
“Help yourself, Ski,” he replied, handing over the binoculars. “Just don’t go sticking your head up any higher than you need to. A good sniper out there could put one right through your skull.”
“Holy shit,” Kowalski said as he scanned the ground ahead. “Those Krauts sure do like to pour concrete. But don’t you think a Zippo could just drive right over those dragon’s teeth and crush them? Or at least blow them apart with the main gun?”
“Not if they’ve got steel girders inside them like intel says they do. We ain’t got the shell weight or the muzzle velocity. We may blow some concrete off, but we’ll still get hung up on ’em, showing our soft belly to the Krauts. And you know what happens then, right?”
“Yeah. We get toasted.”
“Exactly right, Ski. Usually, the engineers are supposed to blow a path through them or just build a mound right over them with bulldozers. But we ain’t got none of them guys handy at the moment.”
“So how are we gonna get through it, Sarge?”
“Oh, I can think of a couple of ways,” Sean replied. “Let’s wait and see what the captain’s got up his sleeve.”
But something else was on Kowalski’s mind. “You think they know we’re here, Sarge?”
“If they’re where I think they are, they can’t see us, Ski. Not as long as we’re on the back side of this hill, anyway. But they probably heard us coming. We ain’t exactly quiet, you know. Not with all these vehicles.”
A few minutes later, Captain Newcomb returned with the plan. “We’re going to put smoke on the far ridge,” he said. “That should blind them while we bring up a two-oh-three-millimeter howitzer.”
Sean frowned. “How long’s that thing gonna take to get here, Captain?”
“It’s moving up the column right now, Sergeant. Should only be a couple of minutes.”
Kowalski shared Sean’s skepticism. “But, Captain, don’t it take like an hour to set that thing up to fire?”
“I don’t think it’ll take anywhere near that long, Corporal. They’ll be very motivated to get this over with, considering how exposed they’ll be on this ridgeline.”
Sean asked, “They’re gonna shoot the bunkers, not the teeth, right, sir?”
“Correct, Sergeant. Write down the azimuth and range to those bunker locations you picked out. Get those cannon cockers in the ballpark before they can even see the damn targets.”
“Already got it written down, sir. But my guess is they won’t hit shit until the smoke clears and they actually lay eyes on them bunker locations.”
“You might be right. But you got a better idea, Sergeant Moon?”
“Not at the moment, Captain.”
As Newcomb returned to his tank, Kowalski asked Sean, “I don’t suppose it would do any good to shoot at those bunkers with the Zippo’s main gun, would it?”
“Are you shitting me, Ski? At this range? Hell, at point-blank we’d probably just bounce off. You remember how tough all them other Kraut bunkers were, don’t you? Fucking walls three feet thick.”
The first of the smoke
rounds whistled overhead. Seconds later, a thick white cloud began to billow across the far ridge, carried gently on the wind.
“Watch real close,” Sean said. “If there really are Krauts up on that ridge, they’ll start laying fire down on our side of the teeth any second now. With the smoke and all, they’ll figure something’s coming. If you’re in their shoes, blind fire is better than no fire at all.”
They didn’t have to wait more than a few seconds for Sean’s prediction to be proven correct.
“Damn, Sarge,” Kowalski said. “What are you, a mind reader or something?”
“This ain’t my first dance, Ski. Ain’t yours, either…so you shouldn’t be so surprised.”
The truck towing the big howitzer rolled into view, its engine roaring in low gear to pull its heavy load up the hill. Captain Newcomb stood on the driver’s side running board, giving an on the fly briefing to the staff sergeant who was the howitzer’s section chief.
Sean jumped onto the running board, too. “I think I got a good place for them to set up, Captain. About forty yards thataway there’s a little clearing right on the peak. It’ll give that two-oh-three a straight shot at anything on that next ridge. We should have just enough room to maneuver this monstrosity into position without a lot of manhandling, either. What do you think?”
“I think it sounds good,” Newcomb replied. Then he asked the section chief, “You agree, Sergeant?”
“I’ll have to see it for myself, Captain.”
Newcomb asked Sean, “How’s the smoke doing?”
“It’s doing outstanding work, sir. And it goaded the Krauts into firing blind down into the valley…all heavy MGs and small arms. No artillery or mortars. At least not yet. Sounds like the whole world’s shooting, but you know how that works. Probably just a company or two.”
“Good,” Newcomb replied. “Let them use up their ammo shooting at nothing. How about you take over here and get this gun into position?”
“Be my pleasure, Captain.”
At first glance, the howitzer’s section chief and his driver didn’t think they stood a chance in hell of getting their piece into the position Sean had picked out.
Our Ally, Our Enemy (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 3) Page 5